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If I were a schill for big business, I'd be all, "Yeah yeah! Do it! Let's compensate by geoengineering!"

DO NOT DO THIS. If it works and you overshoot, you'll induce another ice age, which can happen in as few as a couple of years. Unlike moving in from the oceans over 100-300 years (a nuisance, and less damaging to human life than slowing technological advancement by massive intervention in the economy) an ice age will indeed, and actually, and rapidly kill billions of people.

Lik Willy Wonka, I will sigh and burble flatedly, "No. Stop. Don't do it." but the children won't listen.

A scientist who doesn't consider all paths to solving a problem is not a very good scientist. Let me emphasise.....CONSIDER all paths. To ignore geoengineering as a possible solution to what is happening NOW would be foolish and irresponsible.

DO NOT DO THIS. If it works and you overshoot, you'll induce another ice age, which can happen in as few as a couple of years.

No, an ice age is not something that can happen in a couple of years. The thermal capacitance of the oceans pretty much guarantees that. If you look at the records of past ice ages (glaciations) over the past million years the drop into them is usually much slower than the rise out of them.

Besides that, nothing about geoengineering is long lasting. It pretty much requires that you keep doing it to maintain the effect. That will be an ongoing expense without any clear end.

Besides that, nothing about geoengineering is long lasting. It pretty much requires that you keep doing it to maintain the effect. That will be an ongoing expense without any clear end.

I do not feel confident that what you are saying is true. I see it as possible that a "new" process could interfere with another which would interfere with another, etc. The cascade effect might not stop just because the original process was stopped.

DO NOT DO THIS. If it works and you overshoot, you'll induce another ice age,

It's taken us a long time and a lot of energy to fuck up the biosphere this badly. We won't reverse the trend that quickly even if we try. There are other concerns, though. For example, secondary effects from attempts to fix the problem...

I should think that any geo-engineering attempt to reduce atmospheric CO2 would have to be on a massive scale - there will be plenty of time for the anxious to voice their concerns and present their evidence.

Besides, if anything I think we've been far TOO consultative through this process. We spent what? 30 years listening to denialists and waiting for them to produce some evidence for their theory (that anthropogenic CO2 does not cause warming unlike natural CO2 which is mysteriously different). This is probably 25 years too long compromising to an alternate hypothesis with all the scientific credentials of a guy screaming "A witch did it!".

Usually, reducing carbon dioxide comes under climate change mitigation. So, air capture of carbon dioxide for sequestration would be a mitigation effort already covered by treaty just like planting forests. It would be a big engineering undertaking, yes, but the aim is mitigation. The geoengineering ideas have more to do with changing albedo while leaving the carbon dioxide high. So, pumping sulphates into the stratosphere or putting dust in an orbit between the Earth and the Sun come in as geoengineeri

FFS.
SIGH
re: You mean like no warming in 17.5 years?
There has been plenty of warming in the last 17.5 years. The warming of the surface air temperature has been marginal, (but not statistically significantly "no warming" as you appear to be claiming.) The best you can correctly and scientifically say, is that there might be a reduction in the rate of warming of the surface air temperature.

The oceans have warmed. As can be seen from the direct measurements, if you're into science, but if you're not, it's clear and obvious from sea level rise [csiro.au] which is primarily thermal expansion.

re: They make models that show doom, and don't match up with reality.
No they don't. They make models that investigate the climate.

Some aspects match with reality well. Some aspects require finer modelling. (And there are probably some physical processes that are not fully understood either, especially with respect to cloud formation).

Sure, all (I think) models have a double-Intertropical Convergence Zone. That doesn't mean that they aren't useful. Quite the opposite. The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny...". And so work on the DICZ progresses [nih.gov]. Science advances. We learn more stuff.

Claiming "Models don't match reality! All this science must therefore be rubbish!" is the call of the Luddites. Einstein didn't overthrow Newton, he built upon his work, and Newton did upon the giants upon whose shoulders he stood. This is how science works.

re: Then they redo the models to match the previous few years and again show doom.
I'll keep this response more concise: Bullshit.

re: Sorry you don't understand this and believe their lies while calling those who tell the truth liars.
Really? That's your claim? The scientists are lying to you?
FFS, mate, think about that for a while and get back to me on how likely it could be.

No, the claim is that all the scientists now learned how to do science from doing science fairs in school. They follow the same scientific method they learned there. Make a hypothesis. Form your conclusion. Find, manipulate, or fabricate data to support that conclusion. If you can't fudge the data enough, make a graph with inappropriate scale and units to make your data appear to support the conclusion.

That's what you see in science fairs, and that's all of this bullshit. Science isn't always about looking

Yes, because actual scientists have no ideological motivations. And science is defined by the majority of other scientists. We can't start letting statisticians and people who understand math start analyzing science!

Of course individuals have ideological positions. Scientists are no exception. That is why the methods of modern science, which is to say publication of results under strict conditions of peer review, replication, exposure to critical scrutiny --and there can scarcely be any field of science in history exposed to a greater degree of critical scrutiny --are designed to eliminate the personality of scientists from science. The Cato Institute

Yes [amazon.com], they're [amazon.com] well [amazon.com] over [nipccreport.org]-published [nipccreport.org]. This [google.com.au] is [google.com.au] what [google.com.au] PR [google.com.au] is all about these days. What they're not is peer-reviewed. This is because they're crackpots.

I get the feeling you've missed something very important across this whole debate and that its done some damage to your credibility on this issue.

Otherwise known as "groupthink", motivated in large part by the huge amounts of tax-payer's cash available for their institutions.

Science is pretty good at routing out bad results in less than 40 years and 1,700,000 scholarly publications.

In fact scientists aren't that good at groupthink.

What about PhD students? How are they convinced to tow the line instead of getting a Nobel prize for overthrowing climate authodoxy? Nearly none of them have tax-payers funding beyond their thesis. What about scientists with Tenure? How are they convinced to do bad science, when their funding is guaranteed? What about private research bodies? How

Over the past 40 years, the opinion of the scientific community has consolidated on climate science. Over that time it has become accepted that human activity is the primary cause of the current warming, for instance.

All it takes is one scientist to demonstrate this alleged "groupthink" and they've instantly won a Nobel prize or two, and guaranteed funding for whatever they want to work on for the rest of their life. I know it's convenient to assume there is some plot when science points to your closely-held beliefs being nonsense, but that is verging on the pathetic.

We know how much CO2 human industry is releasing. We know how much CO2 is being released naturally. We know how much CO2 is being absorbed. We know tha

We spent what? 30 years listening to denialists and waiting for them to produce some evidence for their theory (that anthropogenic CO2 does not cause warming unlike natural CO2 which is mysteriously different).

Do "denialists" have a theory?

Yes. In what sense is that not blindingly obvious from the sentence: waiting for them to produce some evidence for their theory (that anthropogenic CO2 does not cause warming unlike natural CO2 which is mysteriously different).?

Do "denialists" get much research grant funding? Does they even get published?

No idea. Do conspiracy theorists and wiccans get published? Perhaps if they would if they, I dunno, did science.

I get the feeling you've missed something very important across this whole debate and that its done some damage to your credibility on this issue.

Is it, or isn't it? If they ARE saying something else, this qualifies as a theory, which contradicts your claim that they are mysteriously right but nobody can explain why, and nobody can demonstrate the truth of what they are saying empirically or even summarise it, using, you know, words, and we shoudl just believe them. In other words, a wizard did it.

Which is your claim: that they are mysteriously right but nobody can explain why, and nobody can demonstrate the truth of what they are saying empirically or even summarise it, using, you know, words, and we should just believe them. In other words, a wizard did it.
IF there is some proof that the theory of AGW is wrong, provide this proof (as published in a reputable journal) along with working. We're waiting.

You mean any studies that will never get published because they will be called "deniers"? Every claim of death and cost of global warming is hugely inflated. I have yet to see a study that shows any possible BENEFIT of global warming despite the evidence that the warmest times in Earth's history have been the times that life has been most prolific.

To summarize - you can't cite a study because you know, conspiracy theory. TIme travelling zombie tyndall flits from school to school, making sure that no-one ever discovers that CO2 is not, in fact, a greenhouse gas.

I do not need to cite any papers for a political and economical solution. Do you think political science is a real science or something?

the brunt of the matter is either make massive and costly changes all at once or implement changes over time when the impacts of global warming actually catch up to the scare predictions. And yes, those scare scenarios are predicted to happen far into the future. Far enough that in some predictions, it will be two or more generations away.

You need to be more specific. Narrow your description of your proof down from "something, somewhere" proves your assertion, to an actual, verifiable and believable reason. Otherwise, your proof has all the credibility of a guy screaming "A Wizard did it!"

You are drawing a picture for me, because your refusal to answer a simple question paints the picture as clearly as an essay on the subject would do.

If you cannot see that people are skipping the cost of fixing global warming and opting to endure its consequences, then you really need to sit down and shut up.

Well, firstly, nothing you do or say is going to make me shut up. No amount of hand gesticulation will halt the growing wave of tsunami of community anger and frustration at denial. You imagine that our patience is infinite. It is not.

Secondly you seem to be confused about exactly what your assertion was. You said that the cost of mitigation is more expensiv

You didn't have any logic or facts either, just your opinion. He chose to highlight the fact that your opinion is not based on the scientific findings of the decades of research on climate change by simply pointing to your name, which is incredibly apt. Don't confuse brevity with laziness:)

Nonsense... pointlessly trying to convince me... [t]he brainless child... suffering the same illogical symptoms... a moron... you should get out of your realm of intellectual dishonesty and join the real world more often... the church of global warming... if you made an attempt at cognitive dissonance, you could achieve a mental state... your beliefs...

You went from discussing global warming the moment you posted the clause "although there has yet to be any empiracle [sic] evidence of such"

After that the rest of your post was rendered illegible and only response you deserved was mockery. AC's put down showed a lot more class than your thrashing about accusing everyone of being "morons" and "imbeciles." More class than even my telling you that you are literally some dumass with "a massive sense of entitlement"

Your post reveals you to be impervious to facts (I'm not sure about logic). Why would anyone waste their time trying responding to someone with an obvious allergy to reality by giving them facts? Seriously? If you want facts go read the IPCC WG1 report.

I am not surprised as this is what "scientific debate" devolves to

Scientific debate takes place within the serious scientific literature. Slashdot is not it. You are not in a scientific

I seem to remember the way, prior to your memory, all scientists were worried about the coming ice age, with the coming droughts.

Yes, you probably remember waking up on Christmas night and meeting santa claus under the tree as well. You'll have to excuse my skepticism, but I'm disinclined to accept you lurid fantasies as a substitute for actual proof.

I think that the concern of the Royal Society is that we are past a couple of really nasty tipping points: The loss of the northern summer sea ice and the loss of the west antarctic ice sheet.
We may have crossed some other lines to do with the Indian monsoon, the African monsoon, the savannahization of the amazon rainforest and the collapse of the boreal forests.

No one wants to do geoengineering, except those with an interest in the fossil fuel industry. But the time to reduce emissions was 20 years ag

I'm skeptical about the ability of geoengineering to solve the problems created by climate change. The climate is chaotic: obviously in its form as weather, but longer-term as well. Is it going to be possible at all to un-stir that pot?

Climate effects of CO2 go well beyond the change in temperature. It also acidifies the ocean, to the detriment of the life there. It also shifts weather patterns: even if we manage the temperature of the globe on average, it won't fix the alternations made to rainfall patterns and local temperatures, which will affect plant and animal life and require changes (perhaps drastic) to the way farming is done. I worry that geoengineering would fight global warming but cause even more climate change.

I guess we won't know if we don't do the research, but it concerns me that it could be seen as "Don't worry, we'll just put everything back, so go ahead and dig up that last ounce of fossil fuel." Even if the geoengineering approach can do more good than harm, it doesn't let us off the hook to produce less carbon, which will mitigate the damage. And we're having a hard enough time getting anything done on that score without adding a new phase to climate change denialism: "We can fix it."

I guess we won't know if we don't do the research, but it concerns me that it could be seen as "Don't worry, we'll just put everything back, so go ahead and dig up that last ounce of fossil fuel." Even if the geoengineering approach can do more good than harm, it doesn't let us off the hook to produce less carbon, which will mitigate the damage. And we're having a hard enough time getting anything done on that score without adding a new phase to climate change denialism: "We can fix it."

While the moral hazard of geoengineering is rather obvious as a problem, so is the assumption that humanity only has one purpose, to keep the climate the same as it was in 1850.

There's a moral hazard to anything that makes a risk less harmful. The result is that people tend to behave in a way that is more likely to cause the risk.

For example, various satellite and cell phone-based communication devices combined with a sophisticated US search-and-rescue system make the effects of getting lost in the middle of nowhere less dangerous. Hence, more people are just taking their chances [deanza.edu].

The same thing will happen with geoengineering. Because it is there, someone will decide that th

Or more explicitly moral hazard describes a situation in which a risk taker is insulated from the consequences of taking that risk. Thus, one would think that a terrestrial geo-engineer taking risks with the viability of the planet was in no position of moral hazard (hence the dig about extra-terrestrial engineers who would not bear the consequences of the risky proposition of geo-engineering).

But I misunderstood what it was you were getting at. You are saying that the moral hazard is that we continue to construct coal-fired power stations (in place of nuclear or other green energy;p), on the basis that geo-engineering solutions are believed to be practicable, yes?

Or whatever else could make global warming (or similar climate-related risk) worse in absence of the geoengineering solution.

My opinion is that these climate risks are greatly overstated as is, but that doesn't mean that I don't recognize the potential moral hazard in geoengineering approaches.

My opinion is that these climate risks are greatly overstated as is, but that doesn't mean that I don't recognize the potential moral hazard in geoengineering approaches.

Well I'm in no position to assess the accuracy of any stated risks, however I think risks should always be overstated. Which is a cheeky way of saying the worst-case scenario has proper place in risk assessment. After all, it is "better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions..." Whatever the accuracy of your assessment of the ris

I should have been on stronger ground to challenge the Straw Man that the "assumption" that humanity's sole purpose is "to keep the climate the same as it was in 1850" is seriously entertained (by serious people).

It's not a straw man argument. For example, a number of organizations and governments including the IPCC and UK law [wikipedia.org] are proposing heroic efforts and a huge curbing of human activity over the next few decades to avoid a modest 2 C rise in global temperature. That's only roughly 3 C over the 1850 climate baseline. And such a proposal ignores the actions of the countries who don't have restraining that climate change as a high priority (such as most of the developing world or the US).

Now "modest" is a slippery as any relative term, but that the climate as it was in the decade(s) surrounding 1850 included a mean global temperature some 3C above the global mean temperature in the decade(s) surrounding 1850 does not seem a matter about which it is possible reasonably to disagree.

Sure, paradoxes are right out. I share your natural inclination to avoid agreeing with a paradox. However, I must admit that I can't help but feel that your point is a total non sequitur to anything we've discussed so far.

Exactly. Climate change is inevitable. Humans can affect the climate. There is only one question we need to figure out... Do we want the planet to get warmer or colder? I prefer warmer myself. Other people are deluded enough to believe they can keep it the same.

It's difficult to say if we can 'fix' it, but we can certainly influence it. It's actually pretty simple (just not cheap)--spray lots and lots of ocean water into the upper atmosphere (I'm talking on a massive scale here). This will result in the formation of clouds, which reflect incident sunlight, resulting in cooling. Based on where your spray fleets are located, you could also heavily influence local climate.

This is of course only one possible approach, and likely not the cheapest.

My concern isn't cost, but the knock-on effects. What else happens when you spray a crapton of water into the atmosphere? Where will rain increase, and where decrease? Is there a risk of disastrous flooding? Will the reduction in visible light throw off animal behavior? Or plant growth cycles?

If all we had to worry about was a few degrees of warming, climate change wouldn't be that big a deal. It's the fact that it has so many other effects, different ones in different parts of the planet. It worries me t

Geoengineering has effectively caused this problem, even though it wasn't necessarily planned geoengineering. Simply burning less fossil fuels isn't going to fix the problem. The ship of climate change has already sailed. Completely halting the release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere today will not turn the problem back in anything less than geologic time.

I like that you mentioned that we won't know if we don't do the research. However, the question that seems to elude many is "what if we don't?".

The IPCC report does discuss what happens if we don't, and it's more than enough to call for some kind of measures. A proper outcome of geoengineering studies will treat that as the control: "This is what we get if we do nothing... this is what we get if we just control carbon output... this is what we get if we apply technique X/Y/Z".

It's just that measuring "this is what we get" is really hard. Temperature is the easiest to predict (and even that is proving aggravatingly difficult on scales smaller than m

Very astute. One of the aspects of the issue that has bothered me is that politics have solidly collided with science. It's not just the obvious issue of denial that bothers me. The issue is solidly sandwiched between denial and the environmentalist activists who suffer from confirmation bias and outright alarmism; who seem to have a worldview is centers around humans being inherently bad and can only serve to damage the world. Not only that, but that the world is pristine and unchanging, like they want

So, why is not implemented on a large scale? Because planting trees is not techonologically "sexy" - it is well known, has been well known for centuries, and, for maximum effect, would require rich countries to invest serious money in poorer countries, to save the rainforest (which is where tree-planting would have maximum impact). And we cannot allow these natives to get money to do something as simple as plant a tree, right?

In other words, the wealthiest have decided it is a lot more fun to throw money at dangerous or even foolish and ineffectual solutions rather than provide for jobs and development in the poorest countries of the world -- precisely the countries that will suffer the most due to global warming. Make of that what you will.

It is often quoted that rain forests absorb buttloads of CO2, but they give off equal amounts. Unless a swamp/jungle is laying down geological CO2 (there are a very few left, Okefenokee is the example that springs to mind) it is just absorbing it, short term. While the rot at the base of the tree is giving off an equal amount.

Geoengineering is yet another stalling tactic by the fossil fuels industry, like carbon capture and storage. They promise huge grants and investments into research which stimulates a lot of interest from researchers and universities who are desperate for the money. They'll build a bunch of white elephant projects and then move on to the next grant while the fossil fuels industry thinks up yet another stalling tactic. If you're not convinced about how ridiculous geoengineering as a concpet is, check out what

But it would require us to stop using alternative fuels like ethanol. We have been deforesting land to form new planting fields to grown corn and sugar cane in for ethanol production. That was a climate win right? How could government solutions possibly make us worse off?

From the linked article:"Forest growth nationally has exceeded harvest since the 1940s.""the average standing wood volume per acre in US forests is about one-third greater today than in 1952; in the East, av

I like planting trees but I'm under no illusion that it will solve the problem. We're burning fossil fuels in a few centuries that took 10's to 100's of thousands to millions of years to lay down. I would expect it to take a similar amount of time to reverse the CO2 levels.

Most conversion of CO2 to O2 is done by algae and other marine life (93% iirc). Trees only contribute a very small percentage. You can increase algae to absorb CO2, but having more algae is not a good thing - it creates toxic environments that kill other types of life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... [wikipedia.org]

By the way this is what a lot of people get wrong when they say 'CO2 is plant food!!'

The CO2 problem is a huge problem we've created that both environmentalists and anti-environmentalists usually vastly underestimate.

Nope. Not even close. Trees are slow growing and decay back to CO2. Better to grow fast-growing crops like corn or grass and burn to form long-lasting charcoal.
Better yet, much better, move everyone to solar power.

Not anti-nuke, but realistic. Experienced system modeling/power trading consultant in electric energy.

I built the tool used by many market players to examine market scenarios. (Including 'market power' plays). Just a model shell, a real time system state API (hate to promote it, it queried data and wrote some model input files) and some analysis tools.

Shutting down all fossil fuel plants, world wide. Would result in economic shock. The system isn't all that 'well buffered' by design, JIT (just in time)

To paraphrase, "How about just shutting down all industry and going back to the caves?" A de-industrialized civilization could only support billions fewer people than are alive today. You would need to 'cull' all of the excess. But really, westerns will never voluntarily accept even energy poverty, so your mass-extermination plan is a no-starter.

'Royally Fucked'". That's what the 'Royal Society of London' should honestly tell its public, and add: "unless you cut down on
Carbon Dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use".
But they know what that means.

You have to keep the flow up as the environment gets worse, and at some point you run out of the resources to geoengineer, which causes a kickback effect that is a large multiple of the geoengineered impact.

Think of it as applying the brakes lightly at the same time that you're flooring the accelerator.

Then you take your foot off the brake while you're going down a steep decline, where you started at a mild decline.

Suddenly you're careening down the hill, out of control.

The best thing to do is stop subsidizing bad behavior that increases it (e.g. fossil fuels) and start requiring all new construction to meet new energy codes (half of all energy use is to heat and cool buildings, and passive solar and insulation can cut that dramatically) while you retrofit any existing fossil fuel plants (e.g. using cogeneration for all pre-2000 coal plants, and phasing out the dirtiest plants by expiring reauthorizations for permits when they come due.

People like to pretend massive change is needed. Energy is not a Binary On/Off thing - a partial change by the largest consumers (e.g. China) causes massive change. Air travel is the largest personal behavior change for people who live in cities (replace old jets with 787s and turboprops and build high speed rail).

In light of reporting in the July-August issue on Harvard’s position on fossil fuel divestment, we wrote Messrs. Paul J. Finnegan and James F. Rothenberg [members of the Harvard Corporation, and Treasurer and past Treasurer, respectively], expressing the perspective summarized below.

Harvard currently holds substantial investments in fossil fuel. The past is no longer prologue for this asset class.

The scientific community—including Harvard’s distinguished climate-related faculty—assert the world must hold global temperatures to no more than 2 degrees C above the preindustrial figure. Governments agree. And, yet, we have already gone half the distance to this ceiling, and are actually accelerating our rapid approach to it. We face an existential planetary threat.

By investing in fossil fuel companies that cling to the outdated business model of measuring success by discovery of new reserves, Harvard is encouraging (and expecting to profit from) the search for more fossil fuel—which will become unburnable if we stabilize global temperatures at levels necessary to sustain life as we know it. When the lid is put on, and carbon emissions are severely limited—as they must be—Harvard will be left holding stranded and devalued assets that can never be burned. (Proven reserves are three to four times what’s needed to transition to renewables by 2050.)

Across the country, hundreds of student organizations work to persuade their institutions’ endowments to divest. Sooner or later, as in the case of companies doing business in apartheid South Africa, divestment from fossil fuel companies will occur. Harvard should be among the first to do so. There are strong, independently sufficient arguments beyond the financial one of stranding to justify divestment. They include the moral (it is repugnant to profit from enterprises directly responsible for carbon emissions or to allow shareholder funds to be deployed in searching for more fossil fuel), the practical (a well-led institution should not wound itself by permitting endowment holdings to demoralize faculty and students, with adverse effects on quality of education, enrollment, and campus environment) and, in Harvard’s case, the unique opportunity (and corresponding duty) it has, as one of a handful of world leaders in education, to lead on this planetary issue.

We support these other arguments for divestment. However, we wanted to bring the financial argument, in particular, to Harvard’s attention. Over the past three years, equities in the coal industry declined by over 60 percent while the S&P 500 rose by some 47 percent. Coal, we submit, is the “canary in the oil well.” Disinvestment now, before this opinion becomes commonplace, is just sound, risk-averse investment judgment, fitting well within the duties of a fiduciary.

Three years is hardly a long term trend--coal will likely bounce back, at least a couple more times. Also, if you think oil and natural gas are going away after we just discovered how to cheaply extract it from shale, you're deluding yourself. Renewable energy continues to get cheaper, and I fully hope and expect it to continue to play an ever increasing role, but it's not ready to completely replace fossil fuels. Not yet. If the major global economies decided to internalize the currently external costs of

You have no complaint
You are what your are and you ain't what you ain't
So listen up Buster, and listen up good
Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-C... [rmi.org]

We simply do not know enough about the planet to 'engineer' it.Every past effort to 'engineer' nature, even the simplest, has discovered things it failed to take in to account eg. introduction of 'control' species that became 'invasive'.On top of which, we don't have to engineer our way out of this. The clear solutions arepresent albeit mundane: more trees, less waste.'Engineering' the planet simply means finding a way to allow us (humans) to continue to make inefficient or wasteful use of our resources.

So this is where I personally opt out.
I will deny climate change simply in an effort to keep people from screwing with the planet and to encourage others to protest experiments.
My next house will have two airconditioners, four cars (all SUV's), two pools, and as much 'always on' electronic gadgetry as I can stuff in it.
All my future purchases will be quadruple wrapped in plastic, all my food processed, and I'll no longer recycle.

If you're going to engineer the planet, I'm going to make it worth your while.

Oh yeah, that sweet sweet grant money. Everyone knows scientists who support global warming are all riding around on their private yachts paid for with the grant money they lied in their research to get, whereas the poor defenseless honest scientists who are sceptical of global warming are all broke and starving because no one will pay them a dime.

Oh yeah, that sweet sweet grant money. Everyone knows scientists who support global warming are all riding around on their private yachts paid for with the grant money they lied in their research to get, whereas the poor defenseless honest scientists who are sceptical of global warming are all broke and starving because no one will pay them a dime.

No, they are not running around on their yachts. They are fighting for a living share of a dwindling supply of cash. They are coming out of the woodwork trying to protect their livelihoods and paychecks for fear they might have to get an industry job where there is accountability for results, not just being able to get grant money. They are fighting to stay relevant, so they can keep their PHD students in subjects do develop and defend, right or wrong.

If this was a business venture, we would have had our answer years ago and wouldn't need another round of National Science Foundation funding to investigate this, or come up with another model that disagrees with the 20 we already have which are not good enough.

So just to be clear, what you are saying is that the science is in such broad agreement that climate change is real and is man made, that it is not even worth spending more money to research it, right?

Not even close to what I said because I don't believe climate change is "settled science". Actually, to me, it's a boondoggle that is a lot like a boat. It's a hole in the water that you dump your money into. We are barking up the wrong tree, in the wrong forest, in the wrong country, on the wrong planet.

Actually I wasn't referring to scientists and their private incomes, although they have mortgages like everybody else. I'm mostly referring to the main method of career progression in academia which involves attracting government money to your institution. The better you are at doing this, the more likely you are to get tenure or a professorship. If you work in academia you have to play this game.

Actually, you have a point. And so does the plan to make plans for geological engineering. The climate has not been stable for 2 million years. If we don't manage to overheat it (by which I mean get back to at least mid-Miocene standards), then it will fall into another ice age. Like the last one that pushed all the way down to Long Island.

So one way or another humans are going to have to stabilize the climate, or go back to migrating around the edges of the ice (whereever they may be). And the coast lines

Please fund a study to test the effects of piracy versus global warming.

It's a no-brainer. It is clear that the rise in mean global temperatures is positively correlated both with increasing numbers of pirates and with the transition from wind-power to fossil-fuel powered vessels used by those pirates. However since correlation isn't causation this tells us little. Ergo it would be a waste of money to fund the study you suggest.